They wouldn’t want him. But, they’d prefer taking Yuli for free as opposed to writing a $10 million check. He’s in lieu of salary offset check they wrote the Yankees. He’s a rental, they’d have no qualms trading inside the division. We aren’t rivals they’d have no qualms with us being better this year.
What do you guys think of Will Smith of the SF Giants as a rental as our 7th inning guy? https://www.baseball-reference.com/players/s/smithwi04.shtml
Because they all think like that, and it’s give them the free potential to flip him next year if they establish any value. And the Seattle GM loves to trade at the margins. He’s the busiest guy in MLB transaction wise.
RP market is robust so I do expect Houston to add a really good reliever. McHugh, James/Devenski, Smith, Rondon, Harris, TBD, Pressly, Osuna is salty.
Depends on what the Astros do with the rotation. If they add a starter I could see Peacock/Harris being the 7th inning guys. Harris against lefties and Peacock against righties.
Oh I agree, I think the playoff bullpen will be fine as long as everybody is healthy. McHugh/James as guys who can go multiple innings if a starter gets knocked out or if the game goes extra. Smith/Rondon/Harris/Peacock as 6th and 7th, Pressly 8th, Osuna 9th. But I think upgrading from Devenski/Perez/whoever as the 8th guy for the rest of this season and to provide insurance against Osuna or Pressly getting hurt makes sense especially given I expect the prices to be fairly low.
Apparently the Astros (and Rays) were in on Encarnacion but didn't want to take on as much money as the Yankees.
Not surprising. In other news, Clint Frazier was optioned to AAA by the Yankees. The expectation is he'll be the centerpiece of a trade for a starter (rumor has it they love Stroman, but not sure how much Cashman will give to a division rival). With the trade for EE, and some of their injured stars coming back, it was clear that the trade for Encarnacion was just the first domino, and I think this year the trade market will move much earlier than usual, especially with the death of the waiver trade deadline.
And if there wasn’t a reason to dislike Trevor Bauer more comes this rumor... MLB trade rumors: Yankees’ Clint Frazier for Indians’ Trevor Bauer?
I heard they also have interest in Wheeler. As for Stroman, I heard (can't remember if it was fans or reports) that the Jays prefer pitching prospects. So if the Astros wanted him I can see the Jays liking what Houston can offer compared to what the Yankees would offer. And although the Jays are rebuilding and wouldn't care if they would have to face Stroman this year and next year, would they still prefer to trade him outside of the division?
Like you said, I would think/hope that any rebuilding team would take the best trade package they can, division be damned.
MLBTR put up their trade candidate list: https://www.mlbtraderumors.com/2019/06/top-50-trade-candidates-2019-mlb-trade-deadline.html Of interest to Astros: SP: Madison Bumgarner Marcus Stroman Mattthew Boyd Mike Leake Danny Duffy Jeff Samardzija Mike Minor Zack Wheeler Trevor Bauer RP: Will Smith Kirby Yates Tony Watson Sam Dyson Shane Greene Alex Colome Mychal Givens Francisco Liriano Mark Melancon Felipe Vasquez Raisel Iglesias Brad Hand Bats: Justin Smoak Nick Castellanos Derek Dietrich Brandon Belt Jose Abreu Anthony Rendon They don’t have the Nats or Mets as sellers, which would add a few names Houston would be interested in. I also think Houston will be interested in catchers who wouldn’t qualify as big names (J McCann, Maldonado, etc.). A couple of names they didn’t mention at all that I think Houston would want are Andrew Heaney and Steven Matz.
That sucks. Hope it's not too bad. This will become a strong argument in the inevitable DH to NL. My views on the DH and pitchers hitting are mixed and well-documented, but we need universal rules.
Lucky guy. At least it was his nose (been there) and not his cheek/orbital/jaw/etc bone. As long as they fix the sinus/breathing passages right you're good to go once the internal swelling goes down in a couple of weeks. I've never seen a MLB player, much less a pitcher, wear one of the NBA-style face guards.
